Central Florida’s already fragile mental health system is reeling from millions of dollars in cuts negotiated by state lawmakers — a loss that has already triggered layoffs at two major providers and is expected to leave several thousand people without care.

A second round of cuts is slated to hit next year.

State lawmakers have largely boasted of increasing behavioral health funding this year — thanks to a $27 million federal grant targeting opioid addictionthat is funneled through state government.

However, that money can’t be used to cover other losses, including $20.4 million in previous substance abuse and mental health block grants from the federal government available for the past two years that just expired.

Some mental health providers said they didn’t know the full extent of the cuts until just before the start of the July 1 fiscal year.

The biggest loser in the budget battle are two central receiving centers in Orange and Osceola counties — triage facilities where police officers can take people who are considered a danger to themselves or others because of mental illness or substance abuse. The state money to those centers has been cut by 40 percent this year, and they are scheduled to lose another 15 percent next year.

Dick Jacobs, president and CEO of Aspire Health Partners, which operates the central receiving center in Orange County, said that his agency is eliminating 65 to 70 full-time positions and that 3,500 residents — mostly poor and uninsured — will not have access to services.

“That’s our estimate, and it’s probably a very low estimate,” he said.

The news outraged some advocates, including Candice Crawford, CEO of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida, who noted that the state already ranks at the bottom of the nation for mental health funding.

“The Legislature continues to get away with sticking it to the people of the state of Florida,” said Crawford, who backed off lobbying efforts during the most recent session after she says legislative leaders assured her there would no major reductions. “It’s mind-blowing.”

It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone.— State Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford

State Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, chairman of the Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee, says the providers should have known the cuts were coming, and he put the responsibility on the Florida Department of Children and Families, which issued a statement saying only that it is “evaluating all funding options and aggressively pursuing other sources.”

The Legislature continues to get away with sticking it to the people of the state of Florida.— Candice Crawford, CEO of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida.

“It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone,” Brodeur said, claiming that DCF recommended $4 million in cuts during a January meeting.

But a March 28 document titled “Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee Chair's Budget Proposal” — which would have come from Brodeur’s subcommittee — shows a recommended cut of $10 million. Ultimately, the Legislature settled on $8 million.

“I hate that the central receiving facilities feel like they’re getting the raw deal on this, and to some degree I absolutely understand,” Brodeur said. “They do phenomenal work. And I want to continue to support them as much as I can.”

Brodeur added that Central Florida Cares, the nonprofit agency that contracts with the state to manage behavioral health funds in the region, should have leftover money from previous years to cover the gap.

Maria Bledsoe, CEO of Central Florida Cares, which acts as a sort of treasurer between the state and the mental health providers that get state money, said her agency won’t know how much money it has left until the close of the fiscal year this month, but that it will be nowhere near what is needed.

“This will have an impact on the entire system of care — from prevention to crisis support to residential treatment,” Bledsoe said.

Advocates have applauded the new money for opioid addiction treatment, which is being used to expand medication-assisted therapy and services for mothers of drug-addicted newborns. It also will increase access to naloxone — the drug used to reverse the effect of opioids in an overdose — and pay for overdose response training, behavioral-health consultants for child-welfare workers and peer-mentoring programs.

But little of that grant, if any, can be used to keep afloat the central receiving centers, they said.

Orange County’s CRC, the state’s first when it opened in 2003, has been touted as a national model that has saved taxpayers more than $50 million by keeping those with mental illness out of emergency rooms and jails.

“We’re trying to figure out how to take the cut so it doesn’t cripple just one thing,” said Donna Wyche, division manager of mental health and homeless issues for Orange County government. “We want to keep the CRC open because it’s a state-of-the-art program, and it helps everyone — the jails, the hospitals, the consumers. But if we spread the cuts out, it will eliminate some of the programs that people go to when they leave the CRC. So what happens then?”

The county and Orlando-area hospitals also contribute to the receiving facility’s budget, but in recent years about a third of its money has come from the state.

In Osceola, Park Place Behavioral Health Care — which opened a central receiving center there in 2015 — has had to lay off 20 people and close one of the unit’s nursing stations.

“It has been brutal,” said the nonprofit’s CEO James Shanks. “But when you cut $800,000 out of our budget, we have to do something.”

The Osceola County Commission and Florida Hospital have both pledged extra funding to try to cover some of the gap, but Shanks said “there’s no way they can replace what the state has cut.”

Shanks said he didn’t learn of the reductions, which took effect July 1, until June 13. He said his facility will have to cut back on charity care it provides to those who are uninsured and underinsured.

Already, some advocates have been meeting with Florida lawmakers — not to restore the money for this year, which is a done deal, but to try to get it back next year.

“People will suffer,” said Frederick Lauten, chief judge of the Orange-Osceola judicial circuit court. “And until enough people are vocal about that, there won’t be a lot of change.”

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As the team departs campus Monday, UCF center Tacko Fall and head coach Johnny Dawkins talk about what it means to be heading to Columbia, S.C., to take on VCU in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Championship. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

As the team departs campus Monday, UCF center Tacko Fall and head coach Johnny Dawkins talk about what it means to be heading to Columbia, S.C., to take on VCU in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Championship. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

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